Guest Blogger Sykes: Late Week Contest Picks

Hey folks--Timothy Sykes is here with his latest contest stock picks. As you'll read, Timothy doesn't like to play the "favorites." So, here he is: Good Wednesday! Tired of earnings plays yet? Too bad! As I hope I’ve shown, they are the best plays for this contest so just suck it up and focus on them instead of following all the other lemmings in stocks like SIRI and CMGI.

My “Early Week Contest Picks” were a snore with none of them moving more than a few percent either way. Boooooring! At least my #1 pick BBW managed to rise 5%, but then again, it’s an SAC Capital stock, so I expected bigger things.

Let’s see if I can do better with the rest of the earnings plays this week.

Everything about OTEX looks great. I could talk about the beauty of their stock chart all day, but more importantly, they report earnings some day this week (I’ll let you figure out the details…trust me, one day you’ll thank me) and the stock has been known to spike on positive earnings. I say the chances of a large move higher are 30%.

MCCC’s chart is nice, too, if not as volatile. Still, it’s lower priced for all you people that don’t like buying double digit priced stocks. No surprise here, analysts’ estimates have been gradually rising into earnings this Friday. (Oops, I gave it away…let’s call it my early Cinco de Mayo gift to you) I say the chances of a large move higher are 35%.

Speaking of foreign celebrations, I’m picking RIO, too. Their 56,000 employees are loving life right now. Even though it’s a $100 billion company (that’s not a typo), its 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 year charts are all perfect as it has been acting more like a $100 million company rising so quickly. Forget the contest for a second, look at this stock’s charts…we should all aspire to be invested in such wonders. Earnings estimates have been surging higher so I say the chances of a large move higher are 50%. I’ll make it my #1 pick. C’mon 7s!

EHTH has a cool little business selling insurance on the internet. They just recently IPOed, but their stock hasn’t really done anything other than bounce around a lot. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they will beat earnings estimates and bounce higher. I say the chances of a large move higher are 30%.

Last, but certainly not least, I’ll pick USU heading into earnings. Their stock chart has recently surged, breaking out a 9 year odyssey hanging around the teens. Let’s see if they can keep up the momentum even if the analysts’ earnings estimates don’t offer many clues. I say the chances of a large move higher are 25%.

Timothy Sykes is a hedge fund manager, star of the reality show Wall Street Warriors, and author of the upcoming book, “An American Hedge Fund” He can be reached at www.timothysykes.com.